Dark Advent

by Brian Hodge

  Despite the tan that decades of farming had branded into him, he flushed. And found a sudden interest in staring off to the side.

  “I didn’t mean you, Caleb.”

  “You think you might’ve if I was younger?”

  “You’ve got nothing to prove to me, Caleb. I still remember how we met.” Diane turned back to the window to stare out at the empty street again. “I’m sure if Jason was here, he wouldn’t be sitting around with his thumb up his ass. But…do you think he’s even still alive?” She shook her head sadly. “For that matter, we don’t even know if Erika’s still alive.”

  Caleb moved a couple steps closer until they were side by side and staring out in tandem. “I got a hunch she is. There’s something a little unique about her than the rest of us, and I’ll betcha that’s why they nabbed her.”

  “Unique?”

  “Yeah. It’s kinda hard to explain. Don’t even know if she’d want me telling you.”

  Diane nodded. “Okay. Keep your secrets.”

  “So I’ll bet she’s still hanging in there.” Then his face ticked. “But for how much longer, I dunno. Hard not to worry after what they done to those folks in the stadium back in June. See a sight like that, you can’t ever unsee it.”

  “Glad I wasn’t there.”

  Caleb nodded. “Missed the invite. Yeah, you got lucky on that one.”

  “Smartest time I ever picked to grab Farrah and hit the stores. I’m glad she…” Diane fell suddenly silent, no longer seeing beyond the pane of glass.

  I wasn’t there…

  Meaning…

  And then she began to scheme.

  * *

  Mid-evening. In the waning sunlight, she looked at herself in the half-length mirror in her room. Front on, left side, right side. She grinned.

  “Hey, hotness,” Diane told herself. “I remember you.”

  She wore a green low-cut dress, short of hem and snug around the middle. Her blond hair was pulled loosely back and pinned at the back of her head, with a few stray wisps trailing down. She actually preferred the length it had gotten in the past year, after keeping it short for so long. It had returned to the way she’d worn it when she’d first married. It was like seeing an old photograph of herself. And if her breasts had lost a few degrees of perk since then, not to worry, because there were so many other compensations.

  “You’re a thirty-seven-year-old knockout,” she pep-talked herself. “You’re at your molten sexual peak. You have it within you to be the object of every man’s desi—” She clamped her mouth shut and started laughing in spite of herself. Nerves, just nerves. The giggles passed. “Just make it back alive, okay?”

  She kicked her feet into a pair of sandals, then double-checked the things stuffed into her purse. Everything in place, fine. Then she reached onto the bed and picked up the small item she’d taken from sporting goods an hour earlier. Into the purse it went, at the bottom.

  “Now or never,” she and her reflection told each other.

  She’d planned on heading out through the twisty maze of hallways and down a back stairway to the fourth floor to avoid attracting attention out on the main floor. It might’ve worked if she hadn’t run into Caleb moments after leaving her room. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, an unlit cigarette popped into the corner of his mouth.

  “Lord, you’re a sight,” he said. His eyes were hard to read, a cross between bemusement and concern.

  “Just going out for a while.”

  He nodded, transferring the cigarette to the other side of his mouth. “I know what you’re thinking. I saw it whirring in your brain this afternoon. You know how dangerous this is?”

  Diane shrugged, her purse sliding against her hip. “Except for Farrah, I’m the only one they haven’t seen. They don’t know what I look like, Caleb. They don’t even know I exist.”

  “Mmm hmm. And what about Ted and Wendy? They switched sides that night in the stadium. Those two didn’t strike me as being especially forgetful.”

  “That’s a chance I’ll have to take. Hope I blend in with the rest of the crowd and they don’t notice me.” She reached out to cup his cheek and felt a light sting of tears, then blinked them back. No chinks in the armor, not tonight. “Don’t wait up, Dad.”

  “Hope like hell you know what you’re doing,” Caleb said. He looked for all the world like a man sending his only daughter off to her first prom, from which she might never come back.

  Diane nodded, but only for his sake.

  No…I don’t …

  * *

  The place nearly choked the breath out of her, and it was more than just the heat from the fires.

  After the seasons of use, the high school gym they used for their arena, their bloodsport, resembled the interior of a medieval dungeon. Dark and grimy, heavy with the aura of uncontained violence, its air smelled rank with old sweat and blood. It was frightening, a terrible place, and she instantly recognized its perverse appeal. The dark side called here, primitive and raw. Anything goes here.

  Diane very nearly turned around and walked back out.

  Steady…go through with this.

  She walked midway up the tiers of bleachers. Down on the floor, a towering bald man wearing a dog collar was squared off against a grubby pair of urchins—late teens, maybe. A black man with a bullhorn had made some comment about justice being served, seeing as how they’d raped Hagar’s woman while he was away, whatever the story behind that was.

  First blood was drawn, and the crowd erupted with appreciation. Her stomach threatened to turn inside out. She’d heard they were doing this show twice a week now, Fridays as well as Tuesdays. Popular demand from a growing population.

  With the green call-girl dress, she felt as if she’d draped herself in neon. Diane could sense the eyes on her as she walked the aisle, stares from the men and animosity from the women. “Premium poon,” she heard someone drawl from the bleachers, and her stomach finished its journey.

  Jason had told her of this place months ago, after he’d wrestled with his own reactions to it. He’d told her what went on down on the floor. He’d told her of the crowd. And he’d told her about the first row at center court, where Travis and his companions viewed the spectacle. She’d never seen Travis, but even from behind, in the gloom, she recognized him from the descriptions given by the others.

  She saw wavy dark hair, and heavy shoulders rising over the seatback. His arms were propped across the seats to either side of him, because he was apparently alone. Poor baby—friends wouldn’t come out to play tonight?

  So much the better.

  Diane took a deep breath and descended the center steps, stopping at the railing, almost leaning against it until she saw that it was wrapped with barbed wire. She peeked out the corner of her eye. Travis sat ten feet away, hunched over now and absorbed in what was going on below.

  She looked to see what it was.

  The bald man had one of his opponents by an arm and a leg, and was using him to bludgeon the other. Every time they clashed, their heads seemed to buckle a little more.

  More eyes upon her—she felt it as surely as if she’d been touched. Travis. The moment of truth. Make it good.

  “You gonna stand the whole time?” he asked, staring directly at her.

  Diane returned it, meeting him eye-to-eye. “Those looked like reserved seats.”

  Travis gave her a crooked grin. “Reserved for whoever I damn well please.” He turned a palm out over the seat next to him.

  She played coy for a moment, pretending to consider it, then slid in beside him. She could smell the pungent tang of his sweat, feel the slick skin of his triceps at her shoulder.

  “I don’t recognize you,” he said, his forehead creasing. “Where the hell did you turn up from? Way out in West County?”

  She let out a h
igh laugh, part faked and the rest sheer nerves. “A little farther than that. I just left Hannibal.” It was the only place she could think of on the spur of the moment, and that was solely because of having read Mark Twain in college.

  “What’s Hannibal like these days?”

  “Dead,” she said, and Travis sniggered. “I came down looking for a little more life and followed another car here. Looks like I found it. I guess.”

  He gave her another smirking grin, leaning in toward her, eyes aglow. She had him interested, and that was the first hurdle. Earlier in the evening she’d been stricken with horror at the thought that he might be gay. No such problem, not with that bulge in his lap.

  Diane considered his looks. He wasn’t really blessed, but you couldn’t call him ugly, either. There was something there, hard to put your finger on. Some spark, an animal charisma. His build certainly helped, and whatever else you could say about this man, his body was one fine piece of work. She decided her reaction was similar to those some women had once had to Charles Bronson.

  He gestured out toward center court, where the bald man stood over the pair of limp, bloody forms heaped on the floor, to the loud acclaim of the crowd. “And a woman like you…you like this?”

  Diane cocked her head, pretending to contemplate it. “I wouldn’t buy the video, but it beats the shit out of basketball.”

  “Not as many rules, and no penalties.” He laughed. “We got the electricity running again, but it seems better like this, the fires. Whole place was my idea.” He pointed a finger up into the mass of spectators in the stands. “For my people.”

  “Your people?” she said, arching her eyebrows. “Everyone here?”

  “Just call me the fucking emperor.”

  “That goes for everybody in St. Louis?”

  “St. Louis and wherever else we expend to.” A brief cloud darkened his smug reverie. “We got a few holdouts here and there, assholes who don’t feel like playing by the rules—”

  Sir, you are talking to just such an asshole.

  “—but we’ll work it out. Once some people of mine get back from a trip, we’ll lay down an ultimatum or two. See if that doesn’t bring ’em around.”

  Diane narrowed one eye. “If I decide to stay in St. Louis,” she mused while drawing a fingertip across the sweat beaded over her breasts, then licking it, “does that mean I’m one of your people too?”

  Travis sniggered again, throwing his head back, the muscles bunching in his neck. “Like I said, just call me the fucking emperor.”

  And it was as simple as that. She stayed with him through the remainder of this barbaric spectacle. Next on the roster of talent were a couple of guys with ball bats settling a dispute over the ownership of a car. Diane marveled at its stupidity. An entire city full of car lots, and two guys were willing to fight over one. She ceased to pay attention to the black man’s introductions after that. She paid as little attention to the exhibition as she could get away with, and when it got too bloody for her, she focused on a spot on the railing and dreamed of better places.

  It took the longest ninety minutes of her life to wind down, and once it had, she hoped she’d never set foot in such a place again.

  “Tell me,” she said then, “does the emperor ever wear no clothes?”

  They rode back to Union Station in Travis’s truck, alone but part of a long caravan. Everyone parked on a gigantic lot outside the back mall entrance, with the elevated lanes of highway in the background. Diane clung to Travis’s arm on the way in, eyes peeled for Ted and Wendy, but the odds were against it. Too dark, too many people, too much going on.

  They cut left, ascending a stairway and crossing a walkway that took them into the Omni. Travis lived on the second floor in a section known as the garden hotel. He was on her as soon as the door was closed, as she’d known he would be. She felt the warm marble of his body against her, his hands running up and down her back, her sides. His mouth smothered her, then ran down her neck. He freed her hair, and it spilled past her shoulders. Travis pushed the dress straps to either side, then peeled the entire top down to her belly, and her breasts jiggled until his hands put a stop to that.

  Subtleties were lost on this man. He was rough, and with the right man, rough could be fun. This was not the right man but she pretended he was, until she felt herself responding to his heavy touch, felt herself growing wet, her breath quickening into his mouth. Until she realized that he was assuming total control of the situation and she couldn’t have that.

  Diane tore her mouth away from his, then dropped her purse on the foot of the bed. Hands spread on his chest, she grinned at him. Giggled. He grinned back.

  “You’re not shy, I’ll give you that,” she said, voice low and husky. “But I think I’m going to have to teach you the pleasures of a little patience.”

  She popped one hand onto his crotch and gently squeezed. His intake of breath was sharp and immediate, and his hands froze on her.

  Got him.

  “I know what you want.” Her lips and eyes drew into a pout as she continued to squeeze and knead his crotch, watching his own breath quicken. “And if you want it…you’re gonna have to wait a little.” She nipped at his chest. “Because it’ll be so much better…and so much wetter…once I get what I want.”

  Putty. He was putty then, offering no resistance when she pushed him onto the stained sheets of his bed. He landed on his back and she hopped up to straddle him, pulling off his shirt, then teasing his pants down his legs until she thought he would surely explode.

  Diane swirled her tongue up his stomach, then his chest, lingering at his throat, listening to his breathless mutterings about how great she looked, how good she felt. She was even starting to enjoy it, in a hate-sex sort of way. It had been over a year since she’d even kissed another man—Caleb’s cheek hardly counted—and she could see going ahead with it, letting the volcano within her erupt. That alone might kill him. But as much fun as that would be, she forced herself to remember that what she had planned would be infinitely more enjoyable.

  “I’ve got this funny little quirk,” she murmured into his ear. “This special little trick I like.”

  “What’s that, babe?”

  She could feel his chest heaving beneath her. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  He grinned and bobbed his head. “Scout’s honor.”

  She crinkled her nose. “It’s kinda kinky.”

  “Hey, I’m up for kinky.”

  “I like to be tied up,” she whispered.

  Travis’s face went blank for a moment, then the grin returned bigger than ever, something inside him flashing the message: One of thooose women. The kind you don’t bring home to mother. A wicked gleam entered his eyes.

  “You ever do it like that before?” she asked when he started to sit up, and held him back. She’d been betting all along that he’d been a pretty conventional lay his entire life, maybe a little variety in position now and then, but otherwise a strict meat-and-potatoes man who got down to business, got his rocks off, and got his sleep.

  The bet paid off. He shook his head.

  “So how can I trust you to do a good job?” she asked, hitting him with another pout. “’Cause if I don’t get what I need…”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a fast learner,” Travis said.

  She arched her eyebrows. “Care to put your money where your mouth wants to be?”

  “Tell me what to do, and I guarantee you’ll be screaming that you never had it so good.”

  If only this guy’s cock was as big as his ego. “Then I’m going to hold you to that. So first, let me teach you the finer points. Let me show you how to do it.”

  He frowned. “You mean…you tie me up? I don’t know…”

  Diane had been expecting reluctance, so she drew back with her arms crossed over her breasts. “I thought you were up for kinky. You m
ean I was wrong about you?” She zeroed in with her eyes. “But just remember: Anything I show you, you get to do it to me. Twice.”

  Travis wet his lips, then gave a curt nod and eased back on the bed.

  She grinned slowly, swayed on the bed. “Don’t go away.”

  Diane reached back to the end of his bed and retrieved her purse. The bed was a full-size, with a headboard and footboard that were perfect for the job. Eyeing Travis, she drew out a handful of silk scarves from her purse, watching his eyes widen and loving every second of it.

  “You travel with those?” he said.

  “You never know when the right opportunity’s going to come up.”

  She started with his left ankle, running a scarf around it a couple times, then tying it tight. The loose ends she secured to the nearest bedpost. She repeated the procedure with his other ankle, and his legs were now spread wide.

  “Having fun?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Not as much as I’m gonna be having when we turn this around.”

  Diane laughed, and for the first time this evening, it was totally genuine. I love it I love it I love it! She took two more scarves and crawled to the top of the bed and bound his wrists. She paused a moment to admire her handiwork. The man was spread-eagle, tight, no slack at all…and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. She’d never seen anyone more helpless in her life. To top it off, he still had his flagpole hard-on and that idiot grin spread across his face.

  Teasingly, Diane reached into her purse one last time and pulled out a leather-sheathed item she’d taken from sporting goods. With one hand holding his erection, she pulled off the sheath with her teeth and spit it aside, and showed it to Travis: a thin-bladed fishing knife, shiny and serrated and sharp as a razor. She notched the blade against the root of his groin and grinned, an entirely different look in her eyes as his erection and smile wilted in perfect unison.

  “Now,” she said firmly. “You tell me where you’re keeping Erika Jennings and you tell me very quietly, or you’ll never have a chance in hell of making any little emperors.”